Despite my initial concerns about the release schedule of WordPress 5.0, I think I have come around. This is mostly due to my experiences at WordCamp US in Nashville last weekend.

A great recap of the event, as well as some awesome take-aways was just published on the GoDaddy blog. Check it out.

Watching Matt’s State of the Word demos for Gutenberg (which you can check out below) were very impressive, showing me functionality within the product that I never imagined was possible.

My first experience with WordPress was actually it’s predecessor, b2. If you’re unfamiliar with the history of WordPress, this is a great read.

Having started with this software way back at the dawn of blogging, I was all-in on the process of developing websites through hand-coding HTML and, eventually, CSS/XML. However, as I have been working in web hosting support for the last 13 years, my skillset with web development has certainly waned.

Along comes WordPress 5.0 and Gutenberg to save the day! The new editor’s blocks are so easy to use and incredibly expansive in functionality. And the best part is that it doesn’t require that I learn any new languages, or skills.

In my early web development days, I relied heavily on The JavascriptSource (you old-timers remember!) to grab snippets, customize them for my needs and claim them as my own. Now with blocks, I can do the same thing. This is very exciting for someone lazy like me!

Can’t say where this newfound motivation will lead me, in terms of blogging, or building sites. What I do know is that I installed 5.0 on this site an hour ago and I already have my longest post in years, so here’s hoping I keep it up.